Smoke billows from Russia’s Kerch bridge to Crimea: Kremlin claims to have shot down two Ukrainian missiles aimed at crucial link to annexed peninsula

Smoke is billowing over Russia’s Kerch Bridge to Crimea as the Kremlin claims to have shot down two Ukrainian missiles aimed at the crucial link to the annexed peninsula.

The Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea and Russia carries heavy significance for Moscow, both logistically and psychologically, as a key artery for military and civilian supplies and as an assertion of Kremlin control of the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014. 

Last week, a Ukrainian sea drone hit a Russian tanker near the bridge, while an attack on the bridge last month killed a couple and seriously wounded their daughter, leaving a section of the road hanging perilously. 

The damage appeared to be less severe than that caused by an assault in October, but it again highlighted the £3billion bridge’s vulnerability. 

As videos circulated on Russian social media appearing to show smoke rising above the bridge on Saturday, Crimea’s Moscow-appointed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, reported that Russian air defence had also prevented an attack there by shooting down two Ukrainian missiles.

The bridge was not damaged, he said, although traffic was briefly halted. An adviser to Mr Aksyonov, Oleg Kryuchkov, claimed that ‘a smoke screen was put up by special services’.

Smoke is billowing over the Russia’s Kerch Bridge to Crimea – as the Kremlin claims to have shot down two Ukrainian missiles aimed at the crucial link to the annexed peninsula

The Kerch bridge connecting Crimea and Russia carries heavy significance for Moscow

The Russian defence ministry said that Ukraine had tried to destroy the bridge using S-200 anti-aircraft rockets. 

The alleged attack is understood to be the first time the crucial bridge has been targeted in the daytime. 

Last month, dramatic footage showed the moment huge explosions ripped through the 12-mile crossing, with large flashes and thunderous blasts seen and heard from neighbouring towns. 

A section of the crossing was destroyed in the double strike, with pictures showing twisted metal barriers, debris and a damaged car in a major blow to Moscow’s war effort. 

The latest alleged attack on the Kerch Bridge came just hours after Moscow claimed they had downed 20 drones targeted Crimea in the early hours of Saturday. 

Fourteen drones were shot down by Russian air defences and a further six were jammed electronically, the ministry said in a Telegram post. No casualties or damage were reported. 

Kyiv officials neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s involvement in the attacks.

The attempted drone and missile attacks follow three consecutive days of drone attacks on the Russian capital, Moscow.

Firing drones at Russia, after more than 17 months of war has little apparent military value for Ukraine, but the strategy has served to unsettle Russians and bring home to them the conflict’s consequences.

Drone attacks have increased in recent weeks both on Moscow and on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 – a move that most of the world considered illegal.

Kyiv officials neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s possible involvement in the attempted attacks.

Elsewhere, Russia claimed it has regained control of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk region in an overnight counter-attack.

A 73-year-old woman was killed early on Saturday morning in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukrainian internal affairs minister Ihor Klymenko said a police officer was killed and 12 people were wounded when a guided Russian aerial bomb hit the city of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Four of the wounded were also police officers, he said.

Meanwhile, local officials reported explosions on Saturday morning in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town, but that there were no known casualties.

On Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, the city of Odesa opened several beaches for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said that six beaches were open, but he stressed that accessing beaches during air raid alerts was forbidden.

The strategic port and key hub for exporting grain has been subject to repeated missile and drone attacks – particularly since Moscow cancelled a landmark grain deal last month amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories – while Russian mines have regularly washed up on the city’s beaches.

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